TORONTO, Aug. 13 /CNW/ - Organizers of the Sobey Art Award presented by
Scotiabank today announced that starting in 2008 each of the four runners up
for the Award will receive a prize of $5,000. This increase is an addition of
the $50,000 presented to the winner of the Sobey Art Award.
    The Exhibition of shortlisted artists for the 2008 Sobey Art Award
presented by Scotiabank will be open to the public August 27 to October 13,
2008. The Exhibition will be hosted by the Institute for Contemporary Culture
(ICC) at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). The 2008 exhibition features works
from the five shortlisted artists.They are as follows:

    West Coast/Yukon: Tim Lee
    Prairies/North: Daniel Barrow
    Ontario: Terence Koh
    Québec: Raphaelle de Groot
    Atlantic Canada: Mario DoucetteThe winner of the 2008 Sobey Art Award, presented by Scotiabank will be
announced at a gala reception at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) on Wednesday,
October 1, 2008. The artists and curators will be in attendance.

    BACKGROUND:

    2008 SHORT LISTED ARTISTS BIOS:

    TIM LEE - WEST COAST AND YUKON

    Tim Lee lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia. Working with
photography, video, text and sculpture, Lee's work both replicates and
re-imagines seminal moments in art history and popular culture. Lee's work
will be featured at the upcoming Biennale of Sydney, Australia; in a fall 2008
solo exhibition at the Hayward gallery in London UK; and a solo exhibition at
the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, Texas.

    DANIEL BARROW- PRAIRIES AND THE NORTH

    Daniel Barrow is a Winnipeg-based media artist, working in performance,
video and installation. He has exhibited widely in Canada and abroad.
Recently, Barrow has exhibited at The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los
Angeles), New Langton Arts (San Francisco), and The Contemporary Art Gallery
(Vancouver).

    TERENCE KOH - ONTARIO

    Born in Beijing China, Terence Koh grew up in Canada and calls
Mississauga Ontario home. Terence Koh's work (sculptures, installations,
performances, and artist books) address the beauty and sublime transcendence
of emptiness, the intertwining of all realms of life and death, and the
constellations or dark matter that create the isolate worlds in which we live.
Koh's work will be featured in 2008 at Peres Projects in Los Angeles CA; The
Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt Germany; and the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de
Castilla y Lesn, Leon, Spain.

    RAPHAELLE DE GROOT - QUEBEC

    Raphaelle de Groot lives and works in Montreal Quebec. Interventions,
installations, performance, videos, and artist books: each of Raphaelle de
Groot's realizations is a particular response to the work with which she is
engaged. Born in Montreal in 1974, Raphaelle de Groot began showing her work
in Canada and in Europe in 1996. She has been awarded several grants from the
Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
In 2006, she was awarded the Pierre-Ayot Prix d'excellence by the City of
Montreal.

    MARIO DOUCETTE - ATLANTIC

    Acadian artist Mario Doucette lives and works in Moncton, New Brunswick.
Doucette has shown his work professionally since 1998 in various mediums and
genres - including drawing, painting, videos and super8 film. He has exhibited
widely in Canada and has participated in several international exhibitions,
namely in France, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Doucette is very active
in the arts community and is a member of Collectif Taupe.

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    The Sobey Art Award, created in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation, is an
annual prize given to an artist under 40 who has exhibited in a public or
commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated. Since its
inception the Sobey Art Award and accompanying exhibition have been organized
and administered by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Since 2006, thanks to an
on-going partnership with Scotiabank, the Sobey Art Award and exhibition are
celebrated annually.
    The Sobey Art Award curatorial advisory panel is made up of five
distinguished representatives from a Canadian art gallery in each of the five
regions. A panel of curatorial advisors, consisting of a representative from a
noted gallery in each of five regions (Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario,
Prairies/North, and West Coast), develops the shortlist for the Award. The
curatorial panel creates a list of five artists from each region; these are
selected from the list of nominated artists, and based on their professional
knowledge of their regions and of the national art scene. The curatorial panel
then meets and chooses one representative from each region to be included on
the national shortlist. The panel will choose the winner on October 1, 2008.

    Sobey Art Foundation

    The Sobey Art Foundation was established in 1981 with a mandate to carry
on the work of entrepreneur and business leader, the late Frank H. Sobey, of
collecting and preserving representative examples of 19th and 20th century
Canadian art. One of the finest private collections of its kind, the Sobey Art
Foundation has assembled exemplary examples from Canadian Masters like
Cornelius Krieghoff, Tom Thomson and J.E.H MacDonald. The collection is housed
in an intimate setting at Crombie House, the former home of Frank Sobey and
his wife Irene in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Tours are regularly scheduled
throughout the summer months and by appointment year round.

    Scotiabank

    Scotiabank is committed to supporting the communities in which we live
and work, both in Canada and abroad. Recognized as a leader internationally
and among Canadian corporations for its charitable donations and philanthropic
activities, in 2007 the Bank provided more than $43 million in sponsorships
and donations to a variety of projects and initiatives, primarily in the areas
of healthcare, education, social services and arts and culture. Scotiabank is
on the World Wide Web at www.scotiabank.com

    Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

    The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia acts as a gateway for the visual arts in
Atlantic Canada by bringing the art of the world to Nova Scotia and the art of
Nova Scotia to the world. It is an agency of the Province of Nova Scotia
responsible for the preservation, exhibition and education of art through its
branches in Halifax and Yarmouth.